REBIRTH

by Cait Gordon

Stealing a moment to myself, I step inside the boardroom adjacent to the biodome—I’m far too early as usual—and close the door. Time alone with my thoughts is something I covet but is not so easy to obtain these days. As if proving my point, there’s a hand patting my shoulder. I jump slightly, then turn to my right. Singh sheepishly rubs her fist over her heart. She’s forgotten and feels bad about that.

Tapping my ear to enable my device, I’m overwhelmed by sounds and voices from the corridors pummelling me all at once from the open door, bashing into each other before taking a swipe at my head—an irritating, bullying fugue. This won’t do. I deactivate it and sigh with relief. That’s much better. Silence is truly golden.

“No apology necessary, Lieutenant,” I sign back. “Status report?”

“Ready, Commander.” Singh taps her fingers on her tablet, then shows me the results. Air quality index is ideal across all seven communities, has been for a while. Seems like we’ve done it. The domes are working.

“Agriculture is ready to transplant seedlings and start sowing fields next week,” she says, and the words transcribe as captions beneath the report.

“How’s our food supply from the ships?” I sign.

Lieutenant Singh swipes another screen to show me. “I’m assured it’s ample.”

I study the entries. Good. We’ll be fine for another two years. Project Rebirth should be a success, as long as we Earthlings remember to stay united for the cause. Our derision and divisiveness had nearly wiped out our planet as it was struck by famine, war, disease, and climate change. So many lives lost, all because we couldn’t understand that every single human was spiralling on the only planet within our grasp that could sustain life. Why did it take one global catastrophe too many for us to realize our collective worth?

“We’ll have to maintain our current vigilance level on this.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I hand the tablet back and head over to the far wall of the conference room, which is mostly windows. The vista before me is glorious. We even have puffy clouds of our own, within the transparent hemispheres. Birds are flying in formation overhead. I’m not sure how their migration instincts will react to their limited space, but we have safety fields in place to prevent them from becoming injured by the domes’ walls. In this moment, they seem happy. I think I made out birdsong among the other distorted noises when my hearing device was switched on earlier in the biodome. I probably should mention the poor sound quality at my next appointment, but I really am far more content living within my version of quiet. My brain desires it.

On the grounds outside the window, six little children dressed in vivid colours chase each other around a tree. They are prancing, sentient rainbows. Such a tall oak, too. There’s a type of reverence I feel for the Old Survivors, the trees that are still with us. If only they could speak in a language we could understand and tell us from their point of view what a bunch of fools we’ve been. I’d love to know what a tree knows. These kids were born on the orbiting ships. This is their first time on the planet’s surface. Their first time seeing a tree. I don’t have to hear to know their laughter is full of glee. Their faces are radiant.

Another shoulder press.

“Commander?” Singh signs.

“Yes?”

“Is there any other data you require?”

“Not for now. I’ll be at the divisional meeting at 1300 hours. Thank you again, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The children’s play distracts me again. I was a teen when I boarded the ship to which I’d been assigned. Not satisfied with being a civilian, I joined the Environment Corps the moment I turned eighteen. A military structure, and our common enemy were the calamities that threatened our survival. Although, truth be told, humanity had already proven that we alone had been what threatened our survival. Thankfully, we’ve woken up. I pray we stay awake.

And young Crístíona cared about anything that grew in the ground. It had always been my keen interest, so they assigned me to the Flora and Fauna division. I couldn’t get enough knowledge in my head fast enough from the biodiversity experts. Might have pushed their patience to their limits with my constant questions.

But information calms me down, strengthens my resolve, and makes me decisive. That’s why I refuse to stop learning. And if it were up to this Crone Commander (laughed when someone call me this once without knowing I was there), I would live inside the biodome.

As I continue to gaze upon the Old Survivors and the Newly Planted, my heart is of hope. Not just imagined hope. A hope that will actually lead to a future.

My comm buzzes. I tap to receive a message:
Commander, three lambs have been born. The first Earth-born in our sector. The blood results of all three ewe mothers exceed expectations. Combined with the data we’ve collected from other sectors, we’re confident that free grazing can continue as planned.

I get another notification. This meeting has been rescheduled. I should head back to my quarters for a light meal. Dismissing the popup, I’m left with the text message.

It would be nice to see the wee lambs. That might make me late for the divisional though.

The children are now bouncing up and down for no apparent reason other than to see how high they can go. Sometimes you just have to capture the joy when the opportunity presents itself.

I’ll be late for the meeting. On account of sheepishness.

I shake my head with a little snicker and head outside to mount my hover-cycle.

Cait Gordon is an autistic, disabled, and queer Canadian writer of speculative fiction that celebrates diversity. She is the author of the award-winning, disability-hopepunk adventure, Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space! Her short stories featuring disabled and/or neurodivergent heroes appear in Spring into SciFi (2024), We Shall Be Monsters, Mighty: An Anthology of Disabled Superheroes, There’s No Place, and Stargazers: Microtales from the Cosmos. She has had poems published in Polar Borealis and Mollyhouse. Cait also twice joined Talia C. Johnson to co-edit the (award-nominated) Nothing Without Us and (award-winning) Nothing Without Us Too disability fiction anthologies.